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The Ultimate Narrow Gauge Railroad - 1894 Style Journals/Blogs
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New member 15 posts detting New member 15 posts
detting

Boyton.JPG 

 

Eighty-one years ago this month, the first issue of Model Railroader was published.  Model Railroad Craftsman, less than a year old, was known simply as the Model Craftsman.  The Model Craftsman covered railroad topics as well as sailing and flying models. 

Another general modeling journal, that was starting its tenth year of publication, regularly featured railroading subjects was called the ModelMaker.  While paging through the January 1934 issue, I found a seven page article on a bicycle railroad, a electric monorail system with an overhead power/guidance system.  I was shocked to see something that seemed as space-aged as a monorail within in the pages of a 1934 publication.  But this rabbit hole was to go even deeper.

The ModelMaker cited an article in the February 17, 1894 Scientific American as a source for historical information, but also provided illustrations from a different source.  Since the 1894 Scientific American is now in the public domain, I was able to get a copy of this issue and sure enough, there are additional illustrations and information to supplement the ModelMaker article.  Between these two sources, we can get a good picture of the experiment that was the Boynton Bicycle Railroad.   
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Jeff G. Regular poster 133 posts
Jeff G.

Already on it

I've been working on a concept based on Boynton as well as Chalmers-Kearny's design and the ill-fated City Island RR.  It will have a retro-futurist vibe that is sort of a mash-up between "Blade Runner" and Fritz Lang's "Metropolis."  I've figured out the track/turnout design (essentially a one rail stub switch) but the big challenge is still going to be the power truck.  So far I have a non powered model for display and to test the overall concept. It's O scale (On zero?) and the pieces were printed at Shapeways. Apologies in advance for the poor quality of a few of the pics:

 

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Bernd MRH Author 5,510 posts
Bernd

Power Source

Belt drive or gear drive to wheels. One motor for each set of drive wheels. Here's a picture of a motor I use. Got them from an E-bay vendor.

These motors run on 6 volts DC. Two in series will give 12 volts. If you use DCC for control then set max output voltage to 6 and you can use only one motor. They are very powerful do to their drive components. Interested? I have some ideas.

Bernd

New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. - Route of the Black Diamonds - NCSWIC
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Verne Niner Frequent poster 890 posts
Verne Niner

I like it too...

I like the Steampunk look of things, if you'll pardon the reference. Don't forget to work in other novelties and inventions for variety and fun. Very creative!

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See my website here: The  Maverick Canyon Branch of the Rio Grande Southern 
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Bernd MRH Author 5,510 posts
Bernd

Closer Look at the Pictures

The last picture is interesting. 1919 they were thinking of "hydro planning". The cover makes mention of gliding on a film of water. Next invention would have been "megalev", riding on magnets. Now there's an idea. With the purchase of the neodymium magnets one could build a model megalev train set. Battery powered of course.   

Bernd

P.S. Jeff, are there any pictures of the drive system?

New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. - Route of the Black Diamonds - NCSWIC
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Jeff G. Regular poster 133 posts
Jeff G.

More bits

Hi Bernd and Verne:

Here are a couple of screen grabs of the wheels as well as a mock-up of the structure in SketchUp. Might tweak this a bit still but am pretty pleased with the overall look (thinking of guy wires with turnbuckles spanning the upper portion of the girders).  Have yet to design a station.  The double wheels will power the cars and the single wheel is an idler as well as a power pick up.  Not sure exactly how the wheels will be driven; I'm thinking some sort of gear/worm combo? They're also a bit plain Jane so I may add a few greeblies here and there for extra texture.  Actually picked up a few model slot car motors to experiment with but the ones you have, Bernd, look interesting.

Feel free to jump in and let me dragoon you into kibbitzing!

JG

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Bernd MRH Author 5,510 posts
Bernd

Structual Design

Jeff,

That's some fine detail work on the support structure. I'll defiantly be following along with this project.

You got me so inspired after looking at this post that I went and ordered the Scientific American article. I'm contemplating building something like that in the future for taking to shows. Haven't decided what scale.

Bernd

New York, Vermont & Northern Rwy. - Route of the Black Diamonds - NCSWIC
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Jeff G. Regular poster 133 posts
Jeff G.

Power truck/drive

Cool.  And if you achieve some sort of design breakthrough on the power truck transmission, please share.  I'm content to just create a non-operating display/diorama but perhaps a small operating layout might be worth exploring.

Then again, it would only de-rail (no pun) my "real" layout yet again!

Cheers.
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